The Message Carly Fiorina Sent by Wearing This Fashion Designer at the CNN Republican Debate

To borrow a catch phrase from her arch nemesis Donald Trump, the second Republican debate was HUUUGE for Carly Fiorina. According to a just released CNN/ORC poll, Fiorina has rocketed to second place behind Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Following a breakout performance at last month's GOP "kiddie" debate in Cleveland, she was catapulted to the main event hosted by CNN at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, last week. The three-hour spectacle featured Fiorina and her rivals fielding questions about everything from pot smoking to Planned Parenthood (an extensive recap here). The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard didn't seem particularly concerned with being likeable, but what she lacked in congeniality, she more than made up for in policy (more on that here)—and in style.

Wearing a $1700 St. John skirt suit and rocking red nails and a sleek execu-bob, Fiorina used color and a knee-length hemline to immediately distinguish herself from the testosterone-heavy pack. That her cobalt blue suit costs more than what most people spend in a month on house payments won't endear her to poor or working class folk. But the multimillionaire is looking to jump from a corner office to the Oval Office. Dressing for the job one wants is always wise. (Can we really expect her to sit down with her buddy Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, in a bargain basement find?) Wearing St. John, in particular, was another smart choice. Founded in the early 1960s by a former model, Marie Hermann, and her then-fiance, Robert E. Gray, the knit-wear line was America-born. Over the course of the next four decades, the couple turned the company they started in a San Fernando valley garage into an international label. The story exemplifies the American dream and bears striking resemblance to Fiorina's own secretary-to-CEO story. And just as Scott Walker uses tales of shopping at Kohl's to burnish his every man image, Fiorina's choice of St John, favored by female captains of industry, telegraphs its own message: authority. Of the line, a critic for* The New York Times* once wrote, "Executives wear it because you can sleep in a St. John's knit suit and look presentable. In fact you could probably fight a fire, deliver a baby or muck out stalls in a St. John suit." Or you could take on 10 male rivals, including a Big Apple big mouth like Trump, before a viewing audience of nearly 23 million.

That Fiorina came dressed to impress last week isn't surprising. She's always been extremely mindful of appearance, the power of style to communicate just as effectively as a well-timed sound bite. She also knows fashion can be employed as a weapon against her rivals. When Hillary Clinton joked that "hard choices," (the title of her memoir) had to be made, when selecting from a rack of red, white, and blue suits this summer, the Fiorina Super PAC attacked the lighthearted quip. "Carly Fiorina has laid out her positions on actual hard choices—whether on how to stop ISIS or how to reinvent government to actually make it work for the people," they said. "The American people want a genuine leader with real solutions to make our country better—not another member of the professional political class who thinks pantsuits are a hard choice.'" The subtext of the strike: If you can't pick a suit, how are you going to be decisive enough to be President? Prior to that, when Fiorina was running for Senate in California in 2010, she was caught mocking opponent Barbara Boxer's hair, declaring it, "Soooo yesterday." Her criticism was meant to imply: Old hair. Old ideas.

During her television victory lap, Fiorina told MSNBC that she was "satisfied" with her debate performance. "It was a long debate," she said, "and I had to do it in high heels." (Anyone who has ever worn a pair of pumps knows that standing in them for three hours takes Herculean strength.) "I hope what people saw last night is that I can win this job and I can do this job," Fiorina added. That, of course, remains to be seen. But she sure looked the part.

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